


Vindication

by tuwhittuwhoo



Category: Rai-Kirah - Carol Berg
Genre: Crueltide, M/M, Master/Slave, Slavery, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17146100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuwhittuwhoo/pseuds/tuwhittuwhoo
Summary: Even after his public triumph over the Mezzrahn, Aleksander is unsatisfied.





	Vindication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cirilla9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirilla9/gifts).



> Set immediately after ch. 4 of _Transformation_ ; a few lines of dialogue are taken from the end of that chapter.

By the time I knelt before the prince, I was shaking in spite of myself. I had managed not to flinch before any of the lords of the house of Mezzrah, however nearly they had come to doing me open violence. It would have been my death that instant at my master's hands, to insult high Derzhi lords by implying that they might violate the customs of guesting. So I had remained still and patient and submissive as a stone, although I waited every moment for one of those 19 proud and offended warriors to forget himself and strike down the slave that had been the cause of their disaster. But I suppose that the instinct to preserve one's own life can give preternatural self-control to other men too, as well as to slaves. I had honed that terror and that instinct for nearly as many years as Prince Aleksander had been alive, and it wiped over even the long-dormant fears -- the glimpse of an impossible horror -- that the Khelid had awakened not a quarter of an hour before.

It was the relief, perhaps, that I had survived, that the Mezzrahn lords had spared me, that cause me to tremble so badly that the wrought-silver basin slipped from my hands entirely. Scented water sloshed over Prince Aleksander's boots and the hem of his cloak. The terror of serving one by one the kin of the nobleman whom the prince had executed from a quarrel over me had belatedly caught up with me, along with the worse terror I had seen, the unimaginable evil looking out through the Khelid's eyes, ensconced at the heart of this palace, this empire, where I was --- _nothing. I was nothing, anymore. I had to be nothing_.

Or perhaps it was the prince's damnable ability, seemingly without trying, to make me forget every self-defense I had learned in the slow hard years of servitude. For in him I was approaching not only a capricious master but the mastermind of the terrible drama whose final instrument I had been.

But Aleksander merely looked down at his soaked clothing, and raised an eyebrow. "It is well that you did not insult my guests with such habitual clumsiness, slave." I was permitted, scarcely believing my good fortune, to fetch another basin and wash his hands. When I made to dry them in that ill-starred headscarf, he twisted it from me in a quick motion of powerful fingers, and pulled my chin up with his other hand. "Well Seyonne, are we Derzhi not a polite people?"

"Yes Your Highness," I whispered. I kept my body still, my eyes lowered. My own true name, in a Derzhi mouth, had once been almost the worst degradation my masters could inflict on me. Even now, it smarted. That such insignificant things could move me still!

The prince let a breath out quickly through his nose as he let me go,as if in disgust, although I could not conceive what in my answer might have offended him. When I lowered my forehead to the floor, I felt the ghost of silk touch my cheek. He had dropped the cloth, one discarded, honorless piece refuse upon another. "None of my guests asks for you, Ezzarian. You do not know how please at table, it seems. Tell Durgan to give you ten lashes for your clumsiness, but he must not to break the skin. For I shall need you in my chambers after, to take a letter."

"Yes, Lord." My forehead was already on the ground, but I pressed it harder into the carpet. Another insult to his guests and message to his courtiers, perfectly calculated to announce -- as if further announcement was needed -- how little he esteemed them: first that he would have them served by a clumsy, half-trained, worn-out slave bought for a menial task; then, that he planned to continue his business tonight, reckoning this banquet, and his punishment of the house of Mezzrah, as simply one among his many duties. It was purely said for the insult, I was sure. Aleksander would spend the evening as he always did -- drinking and wenching in the company of his friends. I would lose a night's sleep waiting in his chambers, but at least the pretense of having use of me had made him lighten my punishment, and it was a night that I would not spend in that underground dungeon.

"And remove that cloth, slave," Aleksander said. "Its sight offends my guests as much as you do." A final twist of the knife that the Mezzrahn lords could neither mistake nor acknowledge, when their humiliation had already been complete. The malice chilled me through as I hastily genuflected once more, picked up the headcloth and withdrew. I thought I could almost welcome the whip if it gave me forgetfulness of Aleksander's cruelty and that horror lurking behind the Khelid's pale gaze.

Durgan's blessedly human eyes narrowed with blessedly human distrust when I repeated the prince's orders. "You had best not be lying, Ezzarian. I warn you, it will be your tongue and worse, if you are."

"Send a message to His Highness and ask, Master," I said. I was too exhausted and sick from all I had just witnessed -- just taken part in -- to take care with my words. "You know I only repeat what I am ordered."

Durgan did know. I had survived this long, after all, as I could not have if I was the sort of slave who tried to lie about his punishment. And he pitied me, I think, to be at the mercy of the Prince's whims. But that did not keep him from doing his duty. When I had been shackled to the post, he used the butt-end of the whip so as not to cut, and plied it with practiced skill over my buttocks and thighs to avoid the still tender weals on my back. Ten strokes, and each one bloomed into a thick deep smart whose bruising would not fade quickly. I gasped at the first, cried out at the second, and sobbed through the rest. When they unshackled my hands, I slid to the ground, bent over, my stomach clenched and retching, my head dizzy and ears ringing. This despite the fact that I had endured far worse not seven days before, not to speak of the many whippings that had left my back scarred in the long years of slavery. In Derzhi farces, comic slaves boast about the toughness of their hides. But off the stage, although one may become inured to the humiliation, the pain is always fresh. And it is always pain. I had learned long ago not to waste the little strength left to me on dignity.

Durgan allowed me a generous number of sobbing, keening breaths before he grabbed my shoulder, pulling me up roughly and shoving me toward the door to the slave barracks.

"Well wash up then and make yourself decent. His Highness wants you."

He permitted me to take some water and rinse my mouth, before ensuring that I washed my face and wiped the sweat and dirt from every part of my body. Only then did he give me a fresh tunic. Every movement was agony. The scabbed weals on my back pulsed hotly in sympathy with the new bruises, and the touch of the coarse cloth aggravated both.

But my Derzhi master had demanded I attend him, so attend him I must. I would not think about the Khelid, or the demon I had glimpsed -- that had glimpsed me -- or even about the coming day. I must take a step, then another, until I knelt again in Prince Aleksander's chambers. I would do his commands, write his letters, and pray that his trick had put him in a good mood. Whatever came after, I would endure of the same necessity that had lain over me these 16 years. _What will come, will come_.

When I reached Aleksander's rooms and passed the sneering disdain of the dennisars who stood guard before the curtain, the prince was already there. He had shed his formal attire for a loose open robe, and he lounged on a low cushioned couch: a golden shengar taking its ease but ever alert and ready to spring. But I had only that brief glimpse of him, because I knelt as soon as I was within and bowed my head. I must not give any sign of the pain the obeisance exacted from my newly bruised body. The prince did not like to see the ugly signs of the punishments he ordered.

"You have taken your time, slave. Did I not say that you were to be waiting for me? Come here."

He might have ordered me to his chambers immediately rather than send me off to be whipped for a trivial infraction in order to press the insult to his guests further, but I only raised myself as quickly as I could, crossed to him, and lowered myself fully to the ground again. "I beg Your Highness's pardon."

"It's true," he said. "There's nothing of a man in you Ezzarians. Everyone could see that tonight. And you are pretty enough still, beardless as a boy, even if you are old. So tell me, Seyonne, why did you displease my guests? Why did none of them wish to take their pleasure of you?"

I realized, then what had needled Aleksander. The Mezzrahn lords would have taken their leave as quickly as could be done without insult. The courtiers would have retired as well, unnerved by what they had witnessed, and even the usual young louts who were Aleksander's drinking companions disinclined to gather around their prince when he was plainly in a dangerous mood. Aleksander had imagined a long evening in which to exult in the masterful lesson he had taught House Mezzrah, to bask in praise and admiration and perhaps finish it off by dictating his triumph to Kiril or Dmitri, but the pleasure had been cut short. So he had found another toy.

"I cannot say, my lord."

"Cannot?" The prince spoke as softly as I had ever heard him, and it frightened me.

"This poor slave could never presume to know the minds of his masters, my lord."

He was proud of his trick, and wanted it acknowledged. But neither his uncle nor his cousin was present (neither, to judge from the letters I had read, would have been likely to give the prince the unqualified awe and admiration he so clearly sought, but Aleksander likely did not consider this). Why summon a worthless Ezzarian slave? Perhaps because I was the conduit of their words, and so, in some strange way that a Derzhi aristocrat could never admit to himself, a stand-in for the absent kin? One infinitely easier to command, who would never question his wisdom, who would always flatter and obey.

"And yet you are the cause of all their evils, aren't you, Seyonne? Are the men of Mezzrah as gelded as you Ezzarians, I wonder -- too womanish to take vengeance themselves even when it is offered?"

What he suggested was impossible: rough treatment of a slave leant for pleasure might be excused, but to kill me, or injure me to the point of illness, or mutilate me, or beat me beyond reasonable measure would have transgressed the guesting law. But I could not say that. "Perhaps all are afraid now, to touch what is yours, Lord," I said carefully, hoping that I had judged his mood accurately.

Above me, I heard a breath let out in almost a laugh and a creak of cushions as my master leaned forward. The flicker of a silk robe caught the corner of my vision, and Aleksander's sweat was suddenly much more in my nostrils. Such are the signs that a slave must learn to read, if he wishes to survive.

I read them wrong.

Derzhi noblemen considered continence shameful, but I knew that Aleksander had young and comely slaves aplenty on whom to sate his appetites, not to speak of courtesans and the daughters of lesser nobles who might be happy enough to think they could buy in the prince's bed some favor for their hegeds. The sons of those nobles, too, perhaps, although never openly, for no freeborn Derzhi man could suffer penetration without incurring shame. There were plenty suffice it to say, whom he could summon to his pleasure, and no reason why he would take an old writing slave, striped and bruised and branded.

Perhaps it been too long since I had been in this position, or perhaps I had grown secure and thoughtless after so many years as naught but a menial. Or perhaps I was shocked still, from what I had seen that night, and shaky of mind from the beating I had just endured.

For I was utterly unprepared for the prince's hand on my nape, guiding me up to my knees and between his thighs. His robe had fallen back and he was fully erect, his shaft dark and swollen against tight golden curls.

I realized, then, what he intended, what I ought to have seen before. I dared to look up-- no, not dared. I was not thinking, and acted from foolish instinct, because I saw the prince's eyes dark with arousal and cruel amusement .

"Let us see, then, what value this troublesome possession of mine has after all, that the Mazzrahn lords do not dare touch." His hand was heavy but almost gentle as he pushed my head down.

I had suffered such things in the first years of my slavery, when it had often been my duty to serve at table and service my master's guests afterwards. I had thought those days were gone, and the memories with them, for I permitted myself no more to look backward to the horrors of my enslavement than to the happier time before. But the scent of his arousal brought memories unbidden to my mind. I could not think of that. Only know that I had survived it, and would survive it again -- or not, as chance took me and my master willed it. 'Dishonor for a free man is simple necessity for a slave,' the saying went. _What will come, will come_.

But as I reminded myself of this, Aleksander had grown impatient, for, almost without warning, he grabbed my scruff of hair and thrust himself fully down my throat. It had been years since I had been used so violently, and I was utterly unprepared for that hot hard length forced into me, scraping and burning down my throat. I choked and gagged, unprepared to suppress the reflexes of survival. My throat and nasal passages burned, eyes were streaming, my jaw locked, and my head felt light as I struggled for breath that I could not reach. The prince laughed, and the bark made his shaft jostle against the back of my throat. I gagged again, choked against the curls that pressed over my face, whimpered around him.

 Aleksander pulled out a little, his tip still in my mouth and his hands still on my hair. "You will have to do better than this, Seyonne, if you are to serve at my table again." 

I shut my eyes against the tears, made my reflexes relax, and did what a slave must do: his master's bidding, with the appearance of eager alacrity. After a few moments, the prince began to thrust again, though more cautiously. This time, I swallowed his length down. I still had the trick of it after all, and that was almost the worst reminder of my degradation. When he groaned and spilled his seed in a hot hard spurt, I swallowed that too, as easily as a whore.

He continued to hold me there, with one hand still on the back of my head, even as he began to soften in my mouth. I was so close that I could feel each breath as his climax faded, and my bruises throbbed to the beat of the blood in his veins. Every part of me ached, now, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up and give in to weeping, and yet I must hold myself still until my master released me.

"So. Perhaps you are worth so much trouble after all," he murmured. "A writing slave who can also please-- a rare value indeed. And you are much less troublesome with your mouth occupied. Hmm, I wonder..." The prince snapped his fingers, and I could hear another slave enter to do his bidding. "Bring a writing desk and pen and paper."

I dared not, could not look as this new game was set up for his amusement: low table was pushed between me and the prince's couch, paper set upon it, and pen and ink pressed into my hands. I was arched awkwardly forward to continue to hold Aleksander's softened shaft in my mouth, while balancing on my knees. When I tried to twist my head a little, so I might be able to put half an eye to whatever the prince would require me to write, he stirred at the movement of my tongue and mouth and I got a sharp slap for my trouble.

"None of that now, Seyonne. Take down a letter to my noble cousin Kiril."

I somehow managed to fill the pen and hold down the paper. It was not a sterling example of my penmanship, but I suppose that mattered little to anyone but the writing slave who later had to decipher it. What comes will come, and one does what one must.

"'Zander to his dear Kiril, greetings,'" Aleksander began. "'I write you not only by the hand of that new slave but from his mouth. For I have discovered tonight that he is a versatile creature.'"

But after that bit of levity, Aleksander set to his letter with surprising seriousness -- you would have thought he was fully dressed and sitting in council, not splayed in debauchery after a night of banqueting: "'I have punished the disloyalty of the house of Mezzrah, of which I know you have been informed, in the following manner...'"

Aleksander dictated more slowly than his wont, a concession, I suppose, to the extra burden he had placed on his scribe. And indeed, I could barely keep up with him. My jaw ached with holding my mouth open and my neck burned from the strain. Every breath through my nose had to be measured and deliberately shallow, and Aleksander's shaft was a slippery and treacherous intrusion that I dared not touch with teeth or lips or tongue, or even disturb by swallowing. All my senses were occupied by him: the salt-bitter taste of him in my mouth, the scent of his raw body in my nose, the scrape of his hair and sweat-sticky skin on my nose and cheeks, the too-close sight of his thigh when I opened my eyes. Even the scabs on my back and the stripes on my buttocks were, by Derzhi logic, the work of his hand through the instrumentality of his slave. And what was I now but just such an extension of his will, the instrument for turning his thoughts into words, a body contorting itself to respond to every desire of his body?

"'Thus I have done, to remind the Mezzrahn lords of their duty and of the penalties for treason. Now you must emphasize this to the barons and dennissars in Parnifour. Tell them the following...'"

I could feel the prince rising in intensity with his emotions, and I struggled to keep pace with him. As he spoke his justifications and made his final orders to his cousin, he grew thick and hard and heavy again in my mouth. But my world had narrowed even further: _only let me finish this letter; let it be soon; let him have no second one to dictate tonight_. When I finished the last word, I set down the pen, praying that he would not make me melt the wax to seal it. But no-- not even Aleksander was so reckless. Another slave prepared the letter for the prince’s seal and removed the writing table. The danger of spilling ink removed, I collapsed forward, willing now to swallow my master's shaft all the way to his testes if it meant any release from the strain of holding my former position. He allowed me to lean against him for a moment and stroked my ragged head like he would a dog. Then, blessedly, he pushed me off him, hissing slightly at the touch of the air, which was cool despite the braziers.

"Well-done, Ezzarian," he said. "You are not so clumsy after all, are you?"

I reeled at the unexpected relief, shocked to find my raw mouth and swollen lips suddenly empty. But took no comfort from it, nor from his praise. I knew what would come next, now. The prince was determined to prove his dominion over every part of me-- not because I had defied or even displeased him, but merely because I had come to his attention, and it amused him to do so.

When he ordered me to bend over the curved head of the couch, therefore, I bowed my head to the ground and hastened to obey. Still, even after all I had endured that night,  I trembled when I felt the head of his shaft press against me, too large and too hard. It was a small mercy that he was slick from my mouth, because, impatient in this as in all else, he penetrated me with a single excruciating stroke.

This second vigor seemed to last an age longer than the first, but at last he spent again with a little cry of triumph, and thrust a few more times, panting on my neck, before he quieted.

"My guests deprived themselves greatly when they refused your service, Ezzarian."

I dared not weep, but I was utterly undone by it all: the slap of his hardened body against my bruises, the burning pain of his thrusts into my unprepared body, the stinging ache in my throat and mouth from his earlier use of me, the new hurts growing where he gripped tight. All reminders of my complete abjection. I was not a servant, now, nor even a tool into which to extend my master's will, but a thing of irrelevant animacy, to be taken up on a whim, used to his pleasure, and thrown away after. Such is the truth of a slave's existence, and I had told myself to remember it every day of my enslavement. But it was only at moments such as these that I truly understood how futile were all my attempts to find some bit of equilibrium in my state, especially not in the palace of Prince Aleksander. So I only bowed my head.

"And you spoke truly, for once, slave, although from flattery, I think, not knowledge. But they were right not to dare to desire what is mine."

 

 


End file.
